>At 05:15 AM 4/30/96, Glenn wrote:>>>I looked. To the best of my knowledge there is only 1 town named in the >>Pre-flood world. It was the one named by Cain. And the pronounceation of >>it is different from the town Eyannoc {sic} in Babylonian. Sometimes>>names that sound the same aren't the same.>>The Arkansas river is not pronounced the same as the state of Arkansas,>but that doesn't mean there is no relationship.>

Part of my childhood was spent merely a mile from the Arkansas river.
Where I lived everyone pronouced it identically to the way the state of
Arkansas is pronounced. I don't understand your point. Just because
things sound the same in two languages does not mean they are related at
all, even if the languages are related. See what I wrote here.

>>Babel to the Babylonians meant "Gate >>of God" to the Hebrews Babel meant "confusion". Identical sound but not >>the same word.>

I wrote:

>>To claim that there are lots of preflood towns named is not >>correct. >
Dick replied:

>We agree. Who stated that?

You made the claim that all the towns in Genesis 1-11 were in Mesopotamia
therefore the flood was in Mesopotamia. Since only one town is preflood,
you can't logically say that the post-flood towns have any relation to the
location of the flood unless you can prove that there was no change in
location. I don't think you can do that given the incompleteness of the
genealogies.

I wrote:>>>>The Pishon, as I mentioned earlier is anybody's guess.>>>>Could even have been an irrigation canal. One of the "rivers" in>>>>Babylon is an irrigation canal named the "Chebar" (Eze. 1:1).>>>I quote you "This is just more speculation.">
Dick replied.

>Hardly. Look at a map of Iraq. Find Babylon. You will see no rivers>flowing through it. Babylon was watered by irrigation.

Dick, are we talking about the same country? The Encyclopedia Britannica
has a map of Babylon in Nebuchadrezzar II's time. The Euphrates went
through the town. (see Britannica, 1982, vo. 2, p. 554) Babylon was
watered by a river! Herodotus (Great Books p. 41 describes Babylon as
being "traversed" by the Euphrates. >>>>>In SW Iraq, where you say this was, the rock types are wrong for> gold.>>No one places Havilah in Iraq that I know of. Arabia was famous for >it's gold in ancient days. How far is Saudi Arabia from Iraq?>

This is a much better claim for the Gold of Havilah than the last one
about trading for gold. I would grant that the rock types in far western
Saudi Arabia are correct.

>>If we are to find a real explanation for the events >>of the Bible, it MUST incorporate all of modern science.>>I don't think you meant to say this. If the resurrection could be>explained by modern science we wouldn't have a religion at all.>>>There is not one geological fact my view violates. There is not >>one law of physics my view >>violates (I don't have objects floating upstream in a flood). My view >>incorporates all of the statements of the Scripture.>>I'm speechless. I think the Australopithicines were too since they are>classified as apes, and apes don't talk. If you can't see any flaws in >a theory that calls for talking apes then I think we've reached an>impasse.>

Ernst Mayr, one of the world's greatest taxonomist examined the various
fossil men and believed that they all should be classified as Homo. The
anthropologists rebelled and retained Australopithecus. Mayr called
Australopithecus "Homo transvaalensis". (See Noel T. Boaz, Quarry_ 1993,
p. 10) Whether or not Australopithecus could or couldn't speak is not
known. I would agree that the evidence for that is less than the
evidence for speech in Homo habilis.

What I really want to find (and is one of the predictions of my view) is
that Homo habilis or Homo erectus lived in some small pocket long before
we find evidence of them in the fossil record. This is quite normal with
the statistical pattern all fossils obey. The temporal gap between the
first and second examples of any fossil is usually quite large (of the
order of millions of years.). The reason is that small populations are
not likely to be fossilized. If this occurred with H. habilis or H.
erectus and it were to be found, I would be so delighted that I would be
unable to contain myself.

>>Is this view novel? Yes. Do people WANT to believe it? NO! But>> that is >>not the criteria of truth nor is it the criteria of successfully >>harmonizing a vast set of facts. >>Here again you and I are in sharp agreement. My approach to harmonizing>Genesis could also be called "novel." I find lots of people who don't>want to believe it. We'll never know the "truth" with total assurity.>All we can do is theorize within the constraints place by the data we >have in hand.>